The present invention relates to an optical coupler network for coupling a plurality of subscriber transmitters to a plurality of subscriber receivers by means of optical star couplers. In case the network is used in computer systems, each transmitter and/or receiver location would be associated with a computer to form a computer node of the network.
A coupling network of this type is proposed in the German published patent application No. P 31 23 445.3 (VPA 81 P 7054 DE). No "echoes", i.e., constantly circulating data packets, occur given this coupler network, as is the case given coupler networks comparable in terms of the number of subscribers (nodes) with only one star coupler. The proposed coupler network, however, can exhibit a considerably higher line attenuation in comparison to coupler networks having only one coupler.